Want & Need
by inkslinger.x
Summary: She wanted escape and wanted him all at the same time, but above that she needed him like she needed to breathe.


**A/N:** This ficlet is basically about Bella's desperation and vulnerability for Rodolphus Lestrange. And afterwards please review.

**_Want & Need… _**

He had some sort of power over her. If you had asked her to define this power, to explain why he had such control over her, she wouldn't be able to answer. It was just inexplicable, in simplest terms.

He intrigued her. Everything about him intrigued her. He was so mysterious, so…different than the others.

He was two years her senior, he was much taller and wiser, and from the very first moment she spoke to him she wanted him to like her. And he did, though he rarely spoke of his feelings; he was the silent type, mystifying and dark, just how she thought herself to be. Only, with him, more so.

They were both Slytherins. She had been in her fifth year when he let her know of his interest in her. At the time she had been somewhat involved with Frederick Nott, but he could never satisfy her like Rodolphus Lestrange could.

It was late autumn when they began dating; each meeting with him was strange and yet memorable.

He liked to take walks at night. Which was perfect, because she did too. They both had an odd like for the _dark_. He'd invite her on these walks and she'd make a point of going, worried that a seventh year like him would eventually grow bored with her.

Usually, he'd end up stopping just short of the lake. This was the spot where he stood and reflected on some things, usually smoking a cig as he thought. She'd stand by his side and stare into the contents of the glittering lake. The lake was black in the night, the ripples barely even visible. For hours they'd stand here, mostly in silence, until he'd wordlessly turn and start back into the castle, and she'd follow.

This went on for weeks.

One night as he stood there and she stood beside him, he let out a puff of smoke and watched it dance in front of him until it dissolved into the night's air. She watched it, too, quietly, waiting for him to speak.

"I'm going to meet some people," he said coolly, flicking the cigarette bud to the grass where it fizzled out.

She looked up at him curiously, looking into his face, his handsome features half-hidden by the shadows of the night.

"Who?" she asked simply.

"Some people," was all he said. He put his hands into his pockets and continued to stare into the lake.

She followed his gaze, looking down at their reflections.

"You can come," he told her, "_If_ you want."

She suddenly had become aware of just how cold it was this brittle winter night. Her charcoal gray eyes looked up at him again, into his handsome face and her lips spread into one of her infamous smirks.

"Of course I want to come," she said arrogantly.

It was then that he looked to her, and he smirked and let out a low sort of cackle. He seemed to find her amusing, this young and naïve girl that had no idea _who_ they were about to meet.

"Come on," he said. He turned and started across the grounds, towards the tall, black gates of Hogwarts.

She hesitated. She looked over her shoulder, shivering, her eyes looking to the castle. Through each window there wasn't light to be seen. Her heavy-lidded eyes traveled back to Rodolphus, as he walked away, not bothering to turn and check if she were coming along with him; he _knew_ she would.

And she did. She hurried after him in his wake, through the night's darkness.

**&**

He had been right; she had no idea, the foolish, young, little girl, what she was getting herself into.

There she was, some short and dainty fifteen-year-old standing before wizards and witches twice and thrice her age and skill, and they all had something she didn't; something he knew she was too childish to possess.

They were each as dark as the next, each willing and wanting to purify the world from the filthy scum that were Muggles and Mudbloods. And they weren't talk, they weren't like her family, like the Blacks were, talking of things they'd never have the guts, the _ambition_ to do.

They were the definition of wicked; so evil and sinister and shameless it'd make any decent persons skin crawl.

But she couldn't understand that. Not yet.

He took pity on her; after her first meeting he told her she didn't have to go back _if_ she couldn't handle it.

"I can handle it!" she had insisted. "Riddle and the rest are right, Rodolphus. I know that."

She went back and back again after that, and soon as the months rolled by and winter morphed into spring, she was changing. He could see it: the glint in her eye where the seed of ambition had been planted. She was wanting it, _she was willing…_

When her mother and father found out about the people she was mingling with and that her boyfriend Rodolphus was bringing her there, in the night, at an old and abandoned cemetery just near a tall, tall hill, they demanded she stop.

They didn't want her associated with them, not _their_ daughter. They were too rich and pompous and cowardly, as Rodolphus had said.

They didn't want her with him anymore, with Rodolphus. He was a bad influence, they insisted.

She didn't listen. She couldn't.

She wouldn't have given up Rodolphus for anything. Over the months, since those autumn days and through the winter ones, she'd grown to need him and she wanted him for as long as she lived. In her own twisted and clouded mind it – what Rodolphus and she shared – was _love._

In her head Rodolphus would have chosen her over anything, too. He loved her. She believed he did.

When she kissed him it was different. It was a feeling she never felt when kissing someone like Frederick. Each kiss, whether passionate and demanding or slow and telling, was still the same; she still felt an unexplainable connection to him that drew her in.

Drew her in so deep she couldn't get away, even when she _wanted _to. Because she wanted escape and wanted him all at the same time, but above that she needed him like she needed to breathe.

**&**

"Summer's here," he told her, bringing the cigarette to his lips. "I'm done with Hogwarts. I have more important and significant matters to be a part of."

She knew what he meant. But she only had one question.

"Will we still see each other?" she asked.

He looked down at her, as if considering her words for a moment and deciding an answer. He held the cigarette between two fingers as he blew out another puff of smoke that billowed away.

"_No_," he said. That was all he said, and he said it with coldness, with finality that she would have been wise not to question.

But, of course, she wasn't wise. She was desperate for him and with only him was she vulnerable.

He turned his back on her and he started away like nothing, like this didn't pain him at all.

She stood and watched, and she knew she couldn't let him go. She couldn't let him walk away from her.

Bellatrix knew what she had to do to hold onto him, and it was the decision that would change the rest of her life until the day she died. As she made it, she felt it and she knew it would. She made it anyway.

"I'm coming with you," she said after catching up with him.

She was only fifteen, she was so young and she had so much to learn and do…

He looked down at her, and that same kind of amused smirk was playing on his lips.

He knew she would come; he knew she'd follow him into this, quitting school just after fifth year and defying her parents' wishes. He knew she would. She always did…_for him_.

"All right," was his reply, simple and short, and he turned and walked back to the castle to pack his things.

She followed, unknowing that in the midst of this spiraling, seemingly endless fall she'd hit the bottom, as something she'd never dreamed she'd become.

Her heart was so open and willing, needing him and wanting him it'd eventually cost her everything: her future, her family, her few friends, and in the end her sanity.

Everything _but_ him. And, in her demented and deluded mind, that's all that mattered, because she needed him and wanted him, and he intrigued her like some great, unsolvable mystery.

It was the power, _the control_ he had over her.

&** Fin **&


End file.
